Wild watchers wanted!

By  Sarah-Jane Stevenson 8 August 2025 4 min read

Have you ever tried to chart your fart? Heard a mysterious croak at twilight and thought which frog is that? Gazed up at the sky and dreamed about galaxies far, far away?

Good news: you don’t need a lab coat or a PhD to explore the wonders of the world around you. Whether it's tracking toots, decoding frog calls or stargazing like a pro, citizen science lets everyone get involved – curiosity is the only qualification.

Citizen science is gaining momentum across the country, offering everyday people the opportunity to contribute real-world data to national research that scientists and researchers simply can’t access without help.

This National Science Week (9-17 August), CSIRO is launching CSIRO Wild Watch, a new nationwide citizen science experiment designed for young explorers but open to all.

CSIRO Chief Executive Doug Hilton said citizen science allowed for environmental observations to be done at scale across geographically diverse locations.

“One of the best things we can do as scientists is involve the community directly in our research. Citizen science can give us information and insights that we can’t gather alone, through data that is richer, deeper and more detailed, and ultimately of greater benefit,” Doug said.

Sparking inquisitiveness

Scientific curiosity can strike at any time. Doug's passion for citizen science was sparked when he was on holidays.

“So, I started studying tiny day-flying moths – nothing to do with my professional work on blood cells – and I found myself, over the years, developing an obsessive interest.

“This year, some friends and I published a paper describing 15 moths that pollinate boronia plants in South West Western Australia. We believe some of the moths and plants are entirely dependent on each other, which is worth knowing if you’re making conservation decisions.”

CSIRO Wild Watch encourages Australians to head outdoors and track the country’s unique biodiversity.

Focussing on six ‘hero species’ in CSIRO’s Wild Files, although open to observations on all interesting plants and animals, through the experiment Australians can put help put real-world data in the hands of researchers at CSIRO’s National Research Collections Australia team.

A family affair

Mum of two Sally Crossman will participate in CSIRO Wild Watch with her children aged eight and 11.

“I’m excited to show my kids that science doesn’t just happen in a lab, that there’s so much more to it,” Sally said.

“Although they love throwing on a lab coat, it’s important to spark a love of the outdoors, of scientific curiosity and understanding our natural environment.

“We live near the beach, and after the recent storms, the kids are keen to look for washed up shark egg cases. We’re also lucky enough to have a reserve close by, so we’ll also be exploring that area as well.”

Supporting Australian researchers

Observations of species found as part of this citizen science initiative will be uploaded to the CSIRO Wild Watch project in iNaturalist. Each week, Australian observations uploaded to the iNaturalist app are integrated into the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), a national online biodiversity database, hosted by CSIRO.

Director of the ALA Andre Zerger said more than 50 per cent of the records in the ALA were attributed to citizen science, in the order of more than 65 million records.

“Data from citizen scientists is being used to support studies of species and ecosystems across Australia. This type of data can help detect species in unexpected areas, explore how populations are changing, and understand the effects of ecosystem change, such as bushfires or flooding on species distributions,” Andre said.

“Our ALA digital infrastructure, ensures that the data is in a format that is searchable, shareable and consistent, also known as findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR).

“Citizen scientists are becoming an increasingly important part of our national data infrastructure, complementing our other data sources from museums, researchers, and government agencies.”

iNaturalist records include metadata such as time, date and location to support sightings. This information will then be verified by the community before coming through to the ALA as an open data record.

For Doug, citizen science is more than just data collection, it’s about building trust and connection between science and community.

“Community involvement also generates trust in the work we do. And that’s really important. With fabulous projects like CSIRO Wild Watch, we can help prevent an erosion of trust so that we’re in the best position, as a nation, to face big scientific challenges - like protecting Australia’s rich and unique biodiversity,” Doug said.

So, grab your device and head outdoors, because every discovery counts!